


All Change

by ceridwen_2020



Series: Early ideas for a re-imagining of the Rise of Skywalker [9]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Character illness (Leia Organa), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27684784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceridwen_2020/pseuds/ceridwen_2020
Summary: On Ajan Kloss, Leia is taken ill. Rey finds out that the Falcon is ready to take her and her friends to Kef Bir and the ruins of the Death Star. Meanwhile, change is afoot in the First Order when Hux finally makes his move against Kylo Ren.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Early ideas for a re-imagining of the Rise of Skywalker [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024378
Kudos: 1





	All Change

Rey and Poe walked quickly down the corridor while Poe filled her in on what had happened to Leia - she had woken up feeling unbearably hot and then had been violently sick. She had asked for Rey as soon as Maz and Rose had got her back into bed.  
Leaving Poe outside in the corridor, Rey went into Leia’s chambers, Maz Kanata was there, helping to make Leia feel more comfortable. Leia sat in bed, propped up on several pillows. She looked pale, more frail than Rey had ever seen her before. Her heart immediately went out to her - to think that she had been annoyed when Poe knocked in the door!  
Looking over, Leia smiled weakly as soon as she saw Rey, ‘Come here, honey.’  
Going over, Leia patted the bed beside her. Taking a seat on the embroidered coverlet, a survival from the royal household of Alderaan, Rey asked her gently, ‘How are you feeling?’  
‘I’m okay,’ said Leia, smiling mischievously, ‘anyone would think I was on the verge of death, the way they are acting.’  
‘Don’t listen to her,’ said Maz with a sigh, ‘she is very sick.’ She left them, telling Rey to come and find her if Leia worsened again.  
Leia grasped Rey’s hand tightly. ‘I felt my son.’  
‘We were connected, through the Force,’ said Rey, remembering its intensity - the touch of his fingers were still imprinted on her ear.  
‘I knew he was here.’ Leia gripped her hand tighter, ‘Poe tells me that he is going with you, and Finn, to get the holocron.’  
Rey nodded, ‘We need to find out what Palpatine wants. Ben won’t tell me.’  
‘He won’t?’  
‘He still doesn’t want me to go.’  
Leia gave a small smile, ‘I don’t blame him, I don’t want you to go either.’  
‘But you’re not going to try and stop me.’  
‘No, no.’ Leia coughed, and Rey soothed her by rubbing her back. ‘I know better than that. I just want you to be careful. If all else fails, find Luke. He will guide you.’  
Rey nodded. ‘I will.’  
‘And go easy on Ben,’ added Leia, squeezing her hand again. ‘He’s been suppressing his feelings for years, except for his anger and his hate. You’re the first girl he’s ever had feelings for. I doubt he knows what to do with them.’  
Despite herself, Rey felt her cheeks burning red.  
‘There, I knew you felt something for him too,’ whispered Leia, a soft smile lighting up her eyes. ‘Use it, draw on it. You both have difficult choices to make - you need to help each other.’  
Gently, Rey leant down and kissed Leia gently on her cheek. ‘Goodbye Leia.’  
‘Goodbye, Rey.’ Leaning back on her pillows, Leia watched as Rey left the room.  
‘That girl has come far,’ smiled Maz, coming back over to the side of the bed with a cup of hot milk.  
‘She has,’ replied Leia sadly, ‘I only hope she finds the strength within to get the balance that she needs… as well as find herself.’  
Outside, Poe and Finn were waiting for Rey. ‘The Falcon’s ready.’  
‘Can we go?’ Rey was torn between wanting to stay and make sure Leia would recover, and rushing off to Kef Bir. Already the delay had made her nervous.  
‘Sure,’ said Poe with a grin, ‘but you might want to change out of your pyjamas first.’

That morning, as soon as he had awaken from a fitful sleep, Kylo Ren attempted to commune with the Force, to work out what to do for the best. Opening up his mind as his Masters had taught him, he let his mind fly unfettered, exploring every avenue, every surge of energy. But he found no comfort there - chaos and tumult met him at every turn. The Force was writhing as if in pain, the unnatural experiments of the Sith and their accumulation of terrible dark side energy having unbalanced the connection between light and dark, life and death. It would explain the malign influence that it was having on him and Rey.  
Rey… he was wrestling with his feelings for her, as well as deciding the right course of action. He had witnessed her growing anger and conflict as she struggled with the manipulations and temptations of the dark side. Their own connection, he had not forgotten, was forced upon them both, neither had asked to be part of a dyad in the Force. He had spent many long hours puzzling over why the Force had sought to connect them - he, the beloved son of heroes and royalty (although he had long ago rejected that lineage), with her, the daughter of vile nobodies who couldn’t wait to get rid of her. Both of them lonely, intensely so, and looking for answers, but finding none from those around them. Their journeys were leading to the same point - the realisation of their own powers on their own terms - but would that be alone, or together? Rey seemed intent on ignoring his concerns, and he had wasted too much time trying to change her mind. Yet… he couldn’t abandon her. Their connection would not allow it, his heart would not allow it. Did Palpatine know that too?  
Sighing in exasperation, he realised that he was going around in circles. Opening his eyes, he ignored the objects that came crashing to the ground as his connection to the Force was disrupted and went over to his bed to complete his morning tasks.  
He had just put his belt on when the comm unit burst into life with soft bleeps and he pressed the button to activate it, ‘Yes?’  
It was Hux. Even the small hologram of the General seemed to radiate excessive satisfaction, setting off alarm bells in Kylo’s head. ‘Supreme Leader, we request your presence urgently in the Council Chamber.’  
‘Urgently?’  
‘Yes, there is something we need you to attend to.’  
‘Very well.’ He shut the comm unit off to get rid of Hux’s face. A feeling nagged away at him, that something wasn’t quite right. He would need to be on his guard. Taking his lightsaber, he attached it to his belt, swung his cloak around his shoulders and headed out of his chambers.

The council chamber was already full of senior officers, Engell and Griss chit chatting, Parnadee and Quinn comparing notes as they waited for the Supreme Leader to appear. Although they had been sceptical about Kylo Ren’s changes to the First Order’s strategy, improvements in loyalty and support were slowly being made in core systems and it would only be a matter of time before their strong hold over the galaxy was consolidated with the addition of the Sith fleet. There was a feeling of confidence, of celebration.  
In contrast, Generals Hux and Pryde stood to one side, not talking but watching the mood in the room. Hux especially was on tenterhooks, he had explosive news that he was very much looking forward to presenting the Supreme Leader with - perhaps too enthusiastically for even Pryde noted that he was jittery.  
‘Keep a lid on it for all our sakes,’ said Pryde quietly, ‘he’s a clever man, he might be able to find a way out of it.’  
‘I doubt it very much,’ sneered Hux, but he made a concerted attempt to hide his emotions behind a blank facade.

As Kylo Ren strode through the corridor towards the Council Chamber, he heard a sinister voice in his head. ‘My boy.’  
‘My Master,’ he stopped by one of the large windows, looking out into the darkness of space where he supposed the Sith to be. His presence weighed heavy, Kylo could feel the tendrils of Palpatine’s dark power sifting through his mind.  
‘I hoped that you would bring me the scavenger by now. The Convergence is soon and we must be ready.’  
‘She is proving rather difficult to capture,’ admitted Kylo, struggling to keep his thoughts and emotions neutral.  
‘You must be ruthless, the stronger she grows, the more of a threat she will be. See it done.’  
‘I will, Master.’ Palpatine’s interference vanished and his mind was his own again. Going over to a comms unit on the opposite wall he punched in a succession of numbers. In a short time, a small hologram of Trudgen appeared. ‘How can I serve you, great Master of Ren?’  
‘Have you found the girl?’ he asked emotionlessly.  
‘Not yet, Master, but we have another lead. The Cademimu sector.’  
‘Good, I want this finished.’ The hologram vanished and he continued on to the council chamber. Before he entered, he paused, reading the room. There was the usual fear, arrogance and underneath it all, scheming, which was probably Hux. Nothing out of the ordinary. Taking a deep breath, Kylo Ren opened the door and entered the room.  
Everything looked normal. The members of the Council were sat in their seats, waiting for him. Their uniforms were neat and tidy, their insignia brightly polished. Hot drinks and pastries were ready on the table in case they became peckish during the sometimes very long meetings, although Kylo was proud of his achievements in cutting out unnecessary discussion time.  
‘Ah, Supreme Leader,’ said Pryde politely, standing up. ‘We were just discussing the improvements to loyalty initiated by your new projects.’  
‘I was reading the stats,’ said Griss appreciatively, ‘they are very impressive.’  
Kylo merely nodded and went to stand by the window at the opposite end of the room. ‘I hope that you have not called me here just to tell me what I already know.’  
‘No,’ said Hux, pushing back his chair and standing up. ‘Supreme Leader, some information has come to our attention that we need to discuss with you. It suggests that you are a traitor to the Order and no longer fit to be our leader.’  
Kylo’s expression did not change. ’What information is this?’  
‘I think you know,’ Hux accused him, going over to one of the computer terminals. ‘Shall we consider your relationship with the scavenger?’  
Pressing a button, Hux played a video that had been spliced together from several cameras across the Steadfast. It showed an old and battered ship entering one of the ship’s hangars, seemingly without obstruction. Members of the Resistance left the ship and were seen making their way easily through the ship to a computer terminal. Then it switched to Kylo walking with Rey to the cells, making no effort to restrain her. The Resistance members were then seen escaping from one of the cells whilst Rey and Kylo Ren remained inside to destroy it. The officers watch astonished as Rey was seen leaving the cell of her own accord, only for Kylo to chase her to the hangar, where he made little effort to capture her despite having a whole squadron of stormtroopers at his disposal. He merely seemed to make her an offer, which she refused, then allowed her to escape on the Falcon.  
‘I think the evidence speaks for itself,’ said Hux, a faint smile on his lips. ‘You gave her and her friends the security codes to get them onto the Steadfast. You allowed them to discover where the Falcon was being kept. You then helped them to escape and created the sham of conflict with the scavenger so that she could leave too.’  
The Supreme Leader scoffed, ‘That’s only your interpretation. There is no evidence of collusion.’  
Smirking, Hux pressed another button on the terminal. Rey’s voice came out clearly over the speakers: 'You don’t have to do this. I feel the conflict within you, it’s tearing you apart…'  
Kylo Ren stiffened. Where the hell did he get this from?  
Rey’s voice continued: 'You will not bow before Snoke. You’ll turn. I saw it. I’ll help you…'.  
‘Perhaps we can consider this evidence,’ said Hux triumphantly, switching the audio off. ‘You plotted with the scavenger to kill Supreme Leader Snoke. Oh, you thought you had destroyed the evidence?’ continued Hux, seeing Kylo’s expression change perceptibly and feeling pleased that he had finally rattled the Supreme Leader. ‘With some tenacious searching, and a lot of bribery, I found it. You can no longer claim that it was all her doing.’  
For once, Kylo had no ready quip at his disposal. There might have been a chance of brazening it out but he could sense that the mood in the room was changing. Despite all he had done to take the First Order in a new direction - or perhaps because of it - the officers were siding with Hux.  
‘Don’t you have anything to say in your defence?’ asked Pryde, feeling disappointed that Kylo Ren had not immediately asserted that the admittedly damning evidence was part of a cunning plan to lull the scavenger into a false sense of security and reveal the location of the Resistance base. Perhaps he had placed a homing beacon on the Falcon? But when the Supreme Leader remained silent, he realised that it was a direct admission of culpability - he was guilty of helping the scavenger. But why?  
‘Kylo Ren - I declare you a traitor and an enemy to the First Order,’ said Hux, enjoying his chance to finally bring down his hated rival. ‘You must stand down immediately and relinquish all your accoutrements of office.’  
‘There doesn’t need to be a scene,’ Kylo Ren said threateningly, brandishing his weapon at Hux, who immediately stepped back. Seeing that no one was brave enough to confront him, he walked over to the door. ‘I relinquish my title gladly. All I want to take is my TIE, nothing else.’ With that, he swept out of the door.  
For a moment there was silence.  
‘He took that rather well,’ said Engell, pleased at the lack of violence.  
Rather less pleased with events, Hux went over to the comms unit at the side of the room, and opened up the communication channel that soon echoed around the ship: ‘Kylo Ren is a traitor and an enemy of the First Order! Do not let him escape! Shoot to kill!’  
Pryde looked at him in annoyance but said nothing. He was still trying to figure out the meaning of the relationship between their former Supreme Leader and the insignificant scavenger, a relationship which had led Kylo Ren to throw away all his power and influence for the sake of one girl. Clearly she was more important than they had realised. Getting up, he looked over at Hux. ‘Is there a tracking device on Kylo Ren’s fighter?’  
Hux went pale, ‘I think so.’  
‘Well you better go and make sure,’ said Pryde crossly, surely the dolt had thought about these things before he decided to accuse Kylo Ren of treason?

Whilst Hux tried to contact the hangar where Kylo’s ship was resting, Kylo Ren was walking swiftly to the same location, on high alert after the General’s announcement. Yet he trusted that his reputation meant that only the most foolhardy or over-confident of troops would try to engage him. He only had to swing his lightsaber or lift his hand and they would easily be crushed, serving as an effective warning to others.  
Fortunately, he reached the hangar without any undue incident, relieved to see that his TIE was waiting where he had left it. Running over to the fighter, he climbed quickly into the cockpit, immediately removing the tracking device that had been hastily, and inexpertly, wired into the console. Tossing it out, he made sure that the holocron was still plugged into the navicomputer and checked that there was enough fuel. Starting the ignition sequence, he knew that from now on he would be on his own. But he was not afraid. It felt liberating, freeing. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he would be beholden to no-one.  
As the engines roared into life, he was pleased to feel the ship respond to his commands. Hux clearly was not forward-thinking - or intelligent - enough to have his ship immobilised and it was not long before he sped out of the hangar and into the huge vastness of space. But where to go? The suddenness of his escape meant that he had no clear plan of what to do with his newfound freedom. He idly wondered if he should try and find the Knights of Ren - as a young man he had yearned to join them on their adventures. But now there was only one person in the galaxy that he wanted to be with. And he had to find her before the Knights did.  
Putting the TIE onto autopilot, he reached out with the Force, searching through the energy trails, looking for one in particular… he went down many avenues, finding nothing, until eventually, in the far reaches of space, he found her. But what was she doing there? Making a rough estimate of the co-ordinates, he entered them into the navicomputer and sped off to find her.

Back in the council chamber, Hux was ranting angrily about the inability of his troops to take down Kylo Ren, ‘Now he’s escaped, he’s a danger to us. If he joins the Resistance…’  
‘On the contrary,’ said Pryde calmly, patting the younger man on the shoulder. ‘Ren has nowhere to go. The Resistance will not take him back, not with all that blood on his hands. Snoke was clever in how he manipulated that young man. He will find himself friendless. Besides,’ he went on, ‘the Emperor is far more powerful than Ren ever was. With him as our leader, we shall accomplish far more.’  
‘Of course,’ Hux could not help feeling crestfallen, he had hoped to take over the role of Supreme Leader following the banishment of Kylo Ren, but it was likely that the First Order would be subsumed under the Empire. Still, there might be new opportunities for advancement that he had not yet considered.  
‘When we went to Exegol, we did not yet meet our new leader. It is now time to do so.’ Going over to the computer terminal, Pryde opened the comm unit and punched in a series of digits. After a moment a blurry hologram came into view, a pale figure wearing a deep cowl, white eyes staring back at the officers in the room. ‘What is it, Allegiant General Pryde? Why do you disturb us now?’  
Hearing the voice, Hux went pale. He recognised it immediately from old Imperial recordings that he used to listen to as a little boy.  
Pryde knelt humbly before the hologram, ’Kylo Ren has betrayed us, Emperor. He plotted with the scavenger to destroy Snoke, and has been helping her to avoid the attempts of the First Order to capture her and her Resistance friends.’  
‘We suspected he would,’ said the hooded figure ominously. ‘But it is of no matter. His love for the scavenger will be his undoing.’  
Hux baulked at that revelation. So Kylo Ren was in love with the scavenger? It was far worse than he realised. At first Hux thought Ren had murdered Snoke for more power, something that he, Hux, could understand. But now it turned out he was yet another lovesick fool, no better than his supposedly illustrious grandfather, Anakin Skywalker. Clearly stupidity ran in Ren’s family.  
‘It is time for the merging of the First Order with the Sith Empire,’ Palpatine went on, ‘Soon the Convergence will be upon us and the Sith fleet will leave Exegol and return to claim our Empire. Without us there has only been chaos. The First Order has paved the way for our return but now we are ready to fully restore order and peace.’ Palpatine smiled slowly, ‘And you, my loyal servants, will be well rewarded.’  
‘Thank you, my Emperor.’ Pryde bowed graciously, ‘We will begin the Final Order.’  
‘See it done.’ The hologram of Palpatine disappeared.  
‘The Final Order?’ asked Hux in a tremulous voice. Even with his contempt for the Force, the dark side energy from Exegol seemed to have penetrated the room, making him feel very small and weak. It was far stronger than Snoke’s power, Palpatine positively radiated with negative energy.  
‘Yes.’ Pryde smiled, pleased to see that Hux, despite his cynicism, had been cowed in the presence of the Sith Lord. ‘Come, it is time to reveal what Palpatine has planned.’


End file.
